Contract Issues and Failing the Fans

Like many readers, I have been caught up reading a series that didn’t end satisfactorily. I have been fascinated by characters who needed their story to be told. I have waited on tenderhooks for those books only to be disappointed.

Often I’ve wondered if it was the editor who was done with the world/series/setup or the author who was tired/blocked/frustrated. In the world of science fiction, the publishers will get the original author to release their world, allowing other writers to piggyback on the success of their books. Many sci-fi authors did the setup, wrote the bible and invited young authors to write stories in their universe. That is an act of caring for the fans who are invested in the world and its characters.  It also provides a ‘leg up’ to young authors and has led to an entire world of fan fiction.

Years ago, there was an author (who shall remain nameless), who signed with a small publisher and wrote a few books. They hit and hit big. In a series of incidents that are forever shadowed in legal brangling and hearsay, Bad Things Happened. The author did not write three books that the small publisher had contracted. Years passed. Fans united on websites and shared their support for the author who was perceived as fighting “the good fight”.

The fans were disappointed. The author tried self publishing to keep food on the table and her efforts were substandard. Now an announcement has gone out that there has been a legal settlement and the author is hard at work on a novel in the long awaited series.

Don’t get me wrong. I have those novels on my keeper shelf. I have re-read them more than once. I have been that fan engaged in the world and caring about the characters… but now I’m asking myself. Do I care? Will I lay down good money for another book by this author?

Who really got hurt? I’m sure the author feels like there was harm. But in reality, she could have cranked out three books, then gone on to another house with bigger advances. It was her choice to fight that fight and not write for the publisher.

The small publishing house was harmed. They finally got an author that could have made them into a BIG house. Isn’t that how publishers get big? They get huge selling authors in their stables and both reap the rewards?

The fans were cheated. First, in losing the next edition of an ongoing series. Second, in being sold self published work that was not up to the standard. And now third, being offered the opportunity to download an ebook in that world.

Publication is a prize. The golden ring that we are all reaching for. We write and edit and share our stories. Hoping that we can produce something that will sell. When we finally receive the call, we collaborate with an editor whose sole desire is to make our book the best it can be. There are stories of editors being the devil and ruining books–but more times, you hear authors thank their editors for forcing them to improve the work.

Harm was done to the following–the fans. The work had traction in the marketplace. Nothing will recover that for this author. By getting greedy, or needy, or whatever it was that caused the three books to not get written for the original publisher, the author has lost the momentum and goodwill that the fans showered upon her.

Can she come back from that? Will there be any die-hard fans left to buy her books? In the online chats (and oh-ho are there a few of those!) most of the posters are saying if there is a book at the bookstore, they will look at it to see if they are interested. They all admit to being invested in the series.

So the question remains, will the fans come back? Will the energy of the original books be somehow revived with the issuance of a story that extends that franchise? Or do the fans feel robbed? Has the time for striking passed? Are the readers off on the next thing–urban fantasy and werewolves–or whatever?

It’s hard to say. For me, the jury is still out. The legal issues might have been settled, but I can’t help but feel for the publisher… it’s a partnership, really. Author and publisher are both in the business to sell books. Each controls one half of the equation and when it’s in sync, both of them profit substantially.

I wonder if a publisher will touch her work. And I wonder if the fans will respond. In this magic world of timing, I wonder if hers is over.

–Sandee Wagner

I Believe in Fairies!

When I was very young, an annual tradition in my family was to watch Mary Martin as Peter Pan on the TV.  (That ages me, doesn’t it?)  There was a scene where Tinkerbell is poisoned and Peter looks directly at the camera and says “If all the boys and girls in the World will say ‘I believe in Fairies,’ Tinkerbell won’t die.”  My mom and I, on the couch, would hold hands and chant over and over, “I believe in Fairies.  I believe in Fairies!”  My bratty younger brother would sit in the floor, chanting, “I don’t believe in Fairies.  Die, Tinkerbell, die!”

Luckily for Tinkerbell, my mom and I outvoted David.

I always knew I loved happily ever endings.  Many is the book I’ve read that I absolutely adored the book, but never considered rereading.  And it didn’t matter whether it was mainstream, SF, history, biography, romance…whatever; if it didn’t have a happy ending, it disappointed me.  For a long time, I even felt guilty that I didn’t “like” very popular books, but if they didn’t have a happy, or at least a satisfactory, ending…

With maturity came enlightenment.  I wanted the white hat cowboy to defeat the black hat bad guy.  I wanted the space trooper to win the war against the Bugs.  I wanted the detective to solve the crime.   And mainstream or not, I wanted the protagonist to triumph.  But it is in romance that I’m GUARANTEED that every book will end with a HEA; that’s why the majority of what I read is romance.

Books that I’ve read in other genres may not have the same set up as a romance.   John of Gaunt loved his Katherine, but not as much as his need to be a king; therefore they didn’t get their HEA until very late in life, when John accepted there was no way he would ever be crowned.  Madselin, Saxon lady, used every weapon in her power to make her Norman husband/overlord submit to her wiles, but it wasn’t until the end, when he surrendered his honor to protect her, that she learned he loved her without him ever saying the words.  And Kristen Bjornsen, Human, and Zainal, Catteni, will never live a life like others of their respective species, but together, they found their own HEA.  And that’s what keeps me reading.

But what keeps me writing is I want to write nothing but Happily Ever After.  Some of my SF friends think I’m selling out.  But what did they expect?  I believe in Fairies!

It Isn’t Easy Being Green!

One of my past favorite characters said that, and I agree. Yesterday I had nice conversation with TS Susan and she asked me what had changed with regards to my writing. Medications? Sunshine? Wine, roses and chocolate? Nah, she didn’t ask that last, but DH has kept all in fresh supply lately. I didn’t have answer for her, or myself until later.

Now I’ll confess. I had a series of ah-ha moments. I didn’t want to be left behind. I didn’t want to be the tagalong, drag along, glad-we-brought-you-to-carry-our-bags Twisted Sister. A one non-hit novel writer. But that’s where I was headed. Selling a couple of short stories–one immediately–boosted a sagging ego. The last, and probably the most important, was that I took myself seriously as a writer. The strange thing about that last statement is that most of my family and friends always had.

Have you had an ah-ha or green moment?

Kudos to those who know the character who said the title of this post. And movie?

Conferences

Most of us have attended at least one conference. Either a regional or National. But are they worth the money? That depends.

There are different factors that go into which conference I chose. Not the least of which is budget. If it’s National, chances are you’ll have to fly to get there (for most of us, anyway). Then there’s the cost of the hotel, meals, books you can’t live without and of course, the cost of the conference itself. You start adding it all up and your pocketbook is going to go, “OUCH!”.

Then there’s the question of regional, National or both? If it’s regional then you won’t have the cost of airfare. But National is, well, NATIONAL! If you’ve never been, you HAVE to go. There’s nothing like being surrounded by 2,000 other romance writers . . . people who share the same passion as you. It’s loud, there are long lines, the elevators are crowded, you come home with a ton of free books, yet you can meet your favorite author and chat with her as she’s signing that free book. You learn a lot about craft, the business of writing, what’s going on in the publishing industry, can network like crazy and best of all, get reenergized about your writing.

However, if you can’t go to National, then chose a regional conference near you. It doesn’t have to be strictly a romance conference, either. I recently attended a regional conference, Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. (OWFI), where I learned about video trailers, women’s fiction, how to write a good romantic suspense plus other useful workshops. The best part about a smaller conference is you can network easier. You don’t have to push your way through thousands of other people to get to where you’re going.

 And you can make some lifelong friends. Not saying that doesn’t happen at National, but in a smaller setting it’s more likely.

Caution! Don’t choose a conference simply because it’s close by. Check out their website (surely they have one), find out who the speakers are, will the workshops pertain to what you write, will there be editor/agent appointments available, etc.?  Don’t go to a Poetry conference expecting to get information on romance. In other words, do your homework beforehand. That way you won’t waste your time and money or wind up disappointed.

Conferences are a great way to rejuvenate those creative juices. That’s what OWFI did for me. I was able to hang out with one of my favorite authors, pitch to an agent, and came home ready to jump back in to my current WIP with renewed energy.

As far as conferences go, this one was definitely worth it!

So choose well and . . .

GO LEARN!

Living…Writing…and HEA

I love living. I love writing. I love HEA (happily ever afters).

Although I’ve been writing for about 13 years, I don’t think I’ve actually loved writing until within the last year and half. I have always loved creating the story and characters, but actually writing it all down after the inital creation…I don’t think it was something I really looked forward too.

Because writing is hard.

Everything you have to learn. The craft, grammar, pov, plotting, active vs. passive, GMC…all these things have to be, if not mastered, at least, learned as fundamental skills. Have I mastered them? No way! But I’m slowly figuring out the comma thing. But if you don’t have the basics, it’s really hard to enjoy writing, to get into the story and be confident in what you are doing.

I’ve finally reached a point where I think I’ve learned the basics and can use them with confidence. Not perfect, but having confidence in yourself is a big part of the fight. It keeps you going and keeps you from giving up even in the face of rejection and critiques. 

Much like life. Life is hard and you get hit with a lot of obstacles and hard times. Some more than others. But you always have to get back up and get back in the fight. Giving up is not an option, even when it seems like all hope is gone.

And finally, HEA (happily ever after). In my experience, life seldom ends with a HEA, which is why I love them so much and why I love romance. I always know there will be a HEA or at the very least, a HFN (happy for now) with a glimmer that things will be okay. It’s a big part of the reason I write romance and not some other genre. 

I could never write a story without a HEA. Mainly because, there is no sweet reward at the end. Nothing for me to look forward too. (another reason I hate horror-there is never a HEA not to mention I have very vivid dreams and a overactive imagination- yup, you guessed it. Bad dreams, all in technicolor.) 

But I want to know…what makes you want to write? And if you don’t write, what makes you want to read romance?

Kira Daniels

www.kiradaniels.com

Slut Writing Conditions

Terminally Curious here. As usual, I’m asking a question–What do conditions need to be in order for you to write?

When you think about writing, what do you see? A perfectly neat, quiet office? A vase of fresh flowers on the desk?

Louis L’amour said he didn’t need anything except a typewriter to write. He could do it anytime, any place–even in the middle of Time Square. But most people aren’t that oblivious to their surrounds. At the very least, most need a little peace and quiet, a place to sit and set their imaginations free. 

Others have very specialized needs.

One woman says she must light a candle when she starts writing, then if she checks email, talks on the phone or anything else, she must blow that candle out. When she’s ready to write again, she relights the candle. (Wish I had the match and candle concession in her neighborhood!)

Some people have to be all alone in their homes in order to put words to paper.

Others need several hours of uninterrupted time.

I have to be up early to write. (It’s when my brain works best.)

Of course these are all conditions we’ve brought on ourselves. A candle has nothing to do with the words in the first woman’s head. The time of day doesn’t really effect my imagination. And if the woman who needed to be alone wasn’t the perfect hostess, she might not care that there are others in her home. (Although I’d love to be her guest!) 

So what about you? Do you have to be in your own office with your lucky pillow behind you? Your puppy lying on your feet? The song you’ve picked out for your POV character playing?

On the other end of the spectrum, I know of women who train themselves to write in snippets of time. The kids are playing a five minute game? Write! Baby’s napping? Write. Husband changing the oil on his Harley? Write!

These women keep their stories in their heads all the time. Suzanne Brockmann, who was a snippet writer when her children were small, says she printed out her WIP and kept it with her where ever she went. In the car. The grocery store. Even to conferences. She might not even open the pages, but she knows it’s there. Waiting. 

Snippet writers think about their work when they do dishes, change diapers or drive kids to school. And if they’re forced to stop in the middle of a sentence, they can start up again by just rereading the last paragraph.

Is snippet writing the perfect style? No. It’s just the right way for that person at that time. Most snippet writers have to write more than one draft of a manuscript, because the first (snippet) draft has short scenes or rough transitions. Or both.

Can  the conditions you need to write change? Sure, and you can do it if you’re determined. How? Same way you up your word count, change genres, wrestle your muse into submission or stay on a diet.

With a mountain of determination.  Realize that what you want to do is necessary, will make your life (or your writing) better. I’m trying to write a little bit at a later time in the day. And each day, I’ll write a little more at that time.

The candle lady can “forget” to relight the candle once. Then twice.

The perfect hostess (who has the perfect husband) can write while he fixes dinner or takes a nap.

So how about a contest? Tell me what conditions you need to work, besides life’s basic necessities such as air conditioning, water and chocolate,  and I’ll draw one person to be interviewed here on the Slut blog. Please notice, you DON’T have to be published.

And I’ll be asking the questions, so don’t expect the usual.

If you have a minute, check out 3 twisted sisters. We have a ton of fun over there, too.

The Best-Laid Plans of Doctors and Moms

First . . . happy Memorial Day! And a salute to our WritingSluts veterans, former Marines Jackie and Sandee. Semper Fi, ladies.

Second . . . happy birth-day plus one to my new nephew. We were all expecting Gavin on June 4th, but problems moved the date up, so we all cleared our calendars for tomorrow at noon. Well, someone apparently forgot to tell the child, or he was just impatient. Anyway, he decided to come yesterday. He was 20.5″ and 7 pounds, 12 ounces. (Imagine what he would have weighed if he’d made it to the full 40 weeks!)

Everything went smoothly with the delivery, but afterward he developed some breathing issues and had to be transferred to the NICU. (N-Mom – new mom, niece mom – is a NICU nurse herself, so she wasn’t as upset since she knew what kind of care he would be receiving.)

DH and I got to go back and see the baby when we got to the hospital. Some of the babies we passed on the way to his cubicle . . . it was enough to make my heart hurt. Teeny, tiny little, some of them small enough to fit in my palm. I just wanted to gather them all close. Compared to them, Gavin looked like a giant.

Of course, he’s a beautiful baby. Lots of dark hair, a dimple in one cheek, a cleft chin. Big feet and long, slender fingers with perfect little nails. It was disconcerting to see him under the lights, with a tiny CPAP mask and IVs and monitors. While DH and Dad discussed his condition, I stroked his arm and talked to him. Later DH said something about the babies not knowing or caring who was there with them, but my niece assured me that he knew Aunt Marilyn was there. LOL.

He certainly made his mom’s Memorial Day a memorable one.

Welcome to the world, sweetie!

Lest We Forget

As romance writers we create heroes and heroines. These characters may be based on people we know in real life, or spun entirely from our imagination. They can be flawed or superhuman. They are ultimately characters we as authors have fallen in love with, and we hope that our readers will fall for them too.

But on Memorial Day, as a nation, we stop to remember the real heroes and heroines who have fought and died for our country.

Memorial Day is the “official” beginning of the summer, my favorite time of year. Summer calls to mind that idyllic time of childhood, the time in our lives when we were young and not so jaded, when life seemed simpler and less hectic. And it seemed to go on forever.

Summer held the bright hope of a life yet to be lived to its fullest.

How fitting then, that at the beginning of summer, we take a moment in between backyard bar-b-ques, the Indy 500, and baseball, to recall those who sacrificed their lives for all that we hold dear. These fallen heroes gave all so that we would always have the bright hope of summer lived in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

May God Bless.

A Batty, Motley Rose

I got one of those emails this week. You know the one from the agent, the editor, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Now don’t feel sorry for me, because I don’t. If anything, I am more determined than ever to get published. No agent of doom, no editor of woe is going to stand between me and my dreams. On the way home from my DJ, I came up with this poem and thought I’d share it with you all. It’s a little tongue in cheek.

The inspiration for this poem came from some research I have done for my current WIP. Did you know Meat Loaf once said that it felt as though they were creating record companies solely for the purpose of Bat Out of Hell? The other two iconic groups I mention in this poem suffered early critics who brutally panned their music. They persevered and today are household names…at least our house. In the case of GNR, they shifted rock music away from glam rock back to metal. But if you read the band’s biography or listen to their later interviews, that was never their intent. They just wanted to make their music, their way.

I don’t necessarily want to turn the world upside down, I just want to tell my story and have someone read it, love it.

So here’s the poem. Hope it makes you smile.

A note received one spring morn,
Damned thing should have made me mourn.
Rejected, facing desolation,
Turned to others for inspiration.

Of the agent thought, “What an oaf!”
That’s when I recalled Meat Loaf
Whose album, Bat Out Of Hell,
Deaf producers damned to hell.

Or pre Jungle Guns N Roses,
Critics warned, “Hold your noses.”
“Great hair,” they said of Motley Crue
“But their music will make you spew.”

So the agent wasn’t smitten.
Yet, another chapter I’ve written,
Still confident in my prose,
A stubborn batty, motley, rose.

Balance in Life and Writing

So, once again, I finished reading a book that I really REALLY wanted to like, but didn’t. I flipped the book around in my hands and re-read the back cover, the teaser in the front pages.  This book really was my kind of fiction, but for me, it fell flat.

Last week, I got sucked into an online discussion at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/) about how hard it is to ‘break up with’ a series. In case you haven’t read these chicks, be aware!  They do not follow the rule, “if you don’t have something nice to say…”  In fact, I think they are pretty brutal with their book reviews.  I don’t think anyone gets better than a C.  That said, they sometimes hit the nail on the head, critique wise.

So why will I quit reading an author when I’ve bought into a long series?  For example, I quit reading Laurell K. Hamilton’s series and I have most of the early ones on my keeper shelf in hardback.  When I thought about it, I realized that I have a pretty hard and fast rule. I give authors three strikes and then they are out. I figure someone who is cranking books out (at the rate I want them to so I can keep reading), is going to have a few ‘less than stellar’ efforts along the way. As long as they do better the next time, I’ll forgive a book that is not up to their previous level of expertise. I’m even willing to admit that some authors (God Bless You, Marilyn) get editors that trash their efforts. But in thinking about what makes me quit a series, I started thinking about what I really liked in a book.

Unlike most of the gals at RWI, I am not a reader that is driven by well crafted characters. I am a ‘plot driven’ reader. I also don’t like long bouts of description or introspection. I want the characters to ‘get on with it’, do something.

I really want there to be a balance in the amount of description and/or introspection and the dialog and action with other characters. In giving me some balance, the author can keep me engaged in the story. I will read a book about characters I don’t care about–I’ll keep reading. I need to find out what happens.

Lots of readers WANT to love the characters and care about what happens to them. For me, that is a happy byproduct of a very good book, not a requirement. Don’t get me wrong, I have fallen in love with heroes. I have rooted for heroines. But I’ve also kept reading when the characters were just blah but I wanted to know, “why an elephant?” Or “is it really a ghost?”

I have authors that are my favorites. When I flip casually through their books, there is dialog on every page… or just about. There is some introspection, but more action. More plot.

While trying to ’suss out’ what I liked, I mentioned in a chat that a specific book would make a good movie. The author said that she never thought about film (Hollywood had not come calling for her). She wasn’t sure that her books would make good movies. And her reason? Because they had so much dialog.

Which made me think, what does a movie have mostly? Dialog. Why does a smart, savvy author not get that movies happen when people talk to each other? Maybe she was thinking that her plots lacked car chases or explosions?

So I’m back to what I like, and what I’d like to be able to write well–and successfully. I’d like to find that perfect life balance that allows me to write every day. I’d like to be able to write plot driven books that have a good balance of dialog to action and introspection. It appears to be a hidden formula that I’m looking for as a reader, so I might as well stretch for it as a writer.

How about you? Plot driven or character driven? Lots of introspection or more dialog??

–Sandee Wagner